Contemporaneity: Historical Presence in Visual Culture

My work on Paper series, Sketchbook Revisions, was recently featured in the Contemporary online journal Contemporaneity: Historical Presence in Visual Culture (Volume 6). Contemporaneity is an open access journal that publishes scholarly and artistic explorations of how the complexities of being in the world have found visual form throughout time.

I was featured on 'The Signal' on WYPR 88.1

I was featured on The Signal by Aaron Henkin on Friday January 23rd and Saturday January 24th for my exhibition Self-Reflection at School 33 Art Center. The Signal is a regularly scheduled program (Friday's at 7pm and Saturday's at 3pm) on Baltimore's NPR station WYPR 88.1 on your dial. You can still hear the interview HERE

Read an interview about my exhibit at Studio H Gallery in D.C.

Review of "Feats of Monumentality"

"Feats of Monumentality at the BWI Airport", by Al Zaruba. Examiner.com

Excerpt from the review: "What commands the exhibition as a dazzling inferno of kaleidoscopic colors and shapes is Steven Pearson’s enormous The Whole is Greater Than(2011) At perhaps 25 feet long and eight panels, it is overwhelming up close and likely to give some serious headaches to the faint hearted. This is a warrior painting determined to lead the charge. Enormously ambitious and wonderfully balanced in its overall symmetrical shape, it nevertheless gives one ample pause to reflect upon its multi-layered implications and associations. Bite off a chunk and chew awhile. It sustains. Of all the works in the show, this is the one that presents the most arguments. Is he aimed towards the corporate? What does it say about our social network? Our economy? Is this a reflection of the American psyche? At its very center is a curious balance of form and color that seems almost benign. For all of it’s layering, there are sections that are curiously uncommitted. Perhaps the fire of other sections need breathing space. What is certain, there is far more than one can digest in one sitting. How it operates in the mind thirty minutes down the road is very different than the rest of the show. Coming back to its image unpacks new things."

Article On "The Sum of Its Parts" Solo Exhibition

An Article in the Captain's Log about my Solo Exhibition at Christopher Newport University. The Sum of its Parts

review in Ode Street Tribune: -Steven Pearson's acrylic paintings replicate with bright colors the irresistible pull of a Blackberry to the message-addicted. You can easily appreciate these works if you quickly stroll through the Arts Center. But the works that contemporary art experts Rebecca Jones and Henry Thaggert have selected for this exhibition also relate to each other in subtle ways. To fully appreciation this exhibition, see the works in relation to each other. John James Anderson's display of D.C. fire hydrant information has formal parallels with some of Steven Pearson's work. The geometric patterning of streets in some of Anderson's panels distantly echo the networks in some of Pearson's paintings. Anderson also arranged images of individual fire hydrants into large, rectangular grids. Like in Pearson's Gaining Momentum and Daily Paintings panels, the rectangular grid pushes against the insistently individual and idiosyncratic grid elements.

-These unique drawings combine forms and colors of the comics without the figurative transfer of images found there. The combined juxtaposition of panels and form and unlikely color and line quality in Steven’s unabashed exploration drives him into fully extending himself without regard for making his work pretty. The raw power transfers to our consciousness with an energy that can confront and question.

"New Visions" at American Contemporary Gallery-Review by Danielle Gagliardi BMoreArt-Within the show a few pieces stand out amongst the rest. Immediately in the foyer of the gallery hangs “Some Heroes Step Forward”, one of Steven Pearson’s bold wood grain abstractions. The combination of his use of comic book colors and the overwhelming scale of his pieces gives the impression of complexity and simplicity at once.

"New Visions" Catalogue Statement- John Bodkin, Director.

-While many artists fall into a comfort zone in their work, Steven is absolutely fearless and driven in his exploration as an artist. The work exhibited here is bold, vivid in its color range and unrelenting in its forms. Steven attacks the very essence of a definitive world. Good and evil, black and white, night and day, real and fantasy all become part of his aesthetics and encompass even his material and techniques.

-Steven Pearson, who has the largest number of works in the show, is also an abstract painter, but his method often involves a whimsical reiteration of familiar figurative forms until their original character is no longer recognizable. In these colorful, carefully organized canvases, one senses a world of identifiable shapes that seems to lie just beyond the ken of normal perception, but nonetheless remains vitally alive and cogent.

-Steven Pearson uses color and form to build tension so tight you can feel it. Organic shapes strain against geometrics, complementary colors bleeding into shades of similar hues. "Copulating" is constrained by its frame while fitting perfectly within it.